RE-BRANDING AMERICA: IT'S NOT ABOUT US
Global Brand-Manager-in-Chief of the United States, Karen Hughes, has just announced her first priority in the campaign to restore the United States' image in the world: Better, faster response to negative reporting; She wants to get out there faster with salutary facts to counter what the administration views as inaccuracies in the international media.
It's a fine start, but not sufficient. It's always important to be prepared to get your side of the story out. But we need a pro-active strategy for replacing negative images with positive ones. And to do that, we're going to have to change the focus of our story.Facts won't change the U.S. image in a world where people filter information through the prism of their own lives, their own needs, their own ambitions and desires. The United States need not change or apologize for its policies. But we won't succeed by talking about ourselves. Instead of making sure our message is heard, we have to make sure that what we say -- and do -- resonates with the motivations of those whose good will we seek. That means...
- Instead of defending U.S. policy, turn policy into action that improves the lives of individuals on the ground.
- Instead of talking about abstractions like Democracy and Freedom, take concrete actions that promote opportunity and fairness in our everyday dealings.
- Rather than requiring others to line up behind our cause, align our cause with the hopes and ambitions of those we seek to enlist.
Great brands
are not about the product and what it does. They are about the customers and what they want. If our re-branding strategy focuses on persuading others of our rightness and our righteousness, we will fail to capture hearts and minds. But if we act -- and are
seen to act -as a reliable partner and steadfast friend, we can brand our nation as a people to whom people all over the world can turn for help and support in achieving their own aspirations.
RE-FRAMING IRAQ
It's Time to Change the Way We Look at This Picture
We have to stop debating whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place. This bickering frames our decisions in terms that must either justify or discredit a decision that can not be unmade.
Rather than revisiting past decisions, it would be more useful to frame the situation to help us deal more honestly and effectively with the questions that should determine our future course. Here's a suggestion:
Right or wrong, U.S. intervention has brought about destabilizing change in Iraq. As a consequence of this intervention, Iraq is now struggling to emerge in peace as a new nation. Whether Iraq succeeds, and the role the U.S. plays, will reflect on our character as a people, at home and around the world, for years to come.
In this context, the important questions are not whether we should be there, or even whether we should leave, but:
Only by re-framing the discussion will we be able to find new solutions and collective resolve.
BRANDING IS ABOUT LEADERSHIP, NOT LOGOS
After spending a lot of money and time, a well-known marketing agency named for
its highly revered founder made up a jazzy new name for itself and introduced
the change to great fanfare. 18 months later, they quietly changed it back.
A major bank previewed its new branding advertising to its employees, only to be told by those same employees that if the bank ran the ads, the employees would quit.
A publishing company seeking to re-position itself as an entertainment entity worked with one of the largest and most admired corporate identity firms to develop a lofty new mission statement and a beautiful new logo. Three years later, the business had never moved from its original model, and the company sold its only assets – books and a book printing facility – to a larger, stronger book publisher.
A decentralized global consulting firm spent three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars developing a global brand statement that everyone could agree upon. To their surprise and dismay, the disagreements between corporate and local markets grew even more fractious and intense after the statement was adopted.
The people in each case were smart. And everyone had the best of intentions.
But somehow their new brand identities couldn’t make it off the page into reality. What Happened? Branding counts and chief executives know it. An organization’s brand identity can be
one of the most powerful sources of competitive advantage.
Effective corporate brands build stronger, more profitable customer relationships, attract more steadfast investors, and inspire employees to higher performance. A powerful brand position can be the basis for setting direction, focusing investment and fostering trust, loyalty – even passion.
Even in these difficult economic times – perhaps because of them -- companies continue to spend money on corporate branding. Mergers, spin-offs and separations -- as in the recent mass-divorce of consulting firms from their ethically and financially challenged accounting spouses -- mean that companies often find themselves in need of a new identity, whether they want one or not.
It doesn’t come cheap. The average corporate branding program costs between $250,000 and $3 million – and that doesn’t include the cost of stationery.
So why do so many branding initiatives fail to take hold? Because in most cases, they go about branding the organization in the same way they would a product. Product brands work when the customer experience matches the packaging, advertising and product performance in the hands of the consumer. Brand managers and the agencies that support them are used to controlling and modifying each of these elements as they choose.
But in branding and positioning an organization, the product is as much about the people as anything tangible the company manufactures, produces or delivers.
Successful corporate branding is driven by understanding, defining and in certain cases changing the countless daily decisions and actions of people as they interact with other people – customers and clients, suppliers and distributors, shareholders and communities, and one another.
This involves bringing together all the elements that collectively make a brand work: competitive position and product set; institutional identity and visual expression; marketing and sales; message development, communications, and advertising; and most importantly, people and practices; leadership and culture.
In the end, branding an organization is about leadership, not logos.
You can’t enforce the brand you can only inspire it. Companies – and their brand consultants -- like to focus on those aspects of the brand that can be drawn up into guidelines and enforced: the logo, the colors, the look and feel. And they do all play a role. But if the leadership doesn’t live and die by the brand every day, inspiring people toward the values and behaviors that deliver the brand experience and drive performance over the top, the brand will not stick, or it will fall apart. If you want your branding investments to pay off, put them into Leadership, not logos.
